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| Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927), Blonde and Brunette, circa 1910, 16 ¼ x 20 3/8 in., Private Collection |
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| A Walk on the Beach, Oil on Canvas laid down on Panel, 18 by 22 in., attributed to Edward Cucuel |
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| Edward Cucuel (1875-1954), Fragrant Summer, Oil on Canvas |
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| Edward Cucuel, Woman Reclining by a Lake, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection |
Forging works of art is a highly contagious disease spread
primarily by intimate contact with cold hard cash. As we all know, there is a lot of fake art
of every kind on display in museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide. The late Thomas Hoving, a former director of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, figured that forgeries comprise up to 40% of
the art market.
We can’t tell a fake Paleolithic tool
or Picasso painting from a real one.
But big spenders like owning an original something or other, and the experts
who authenticate such things are like expert witnesses in court cases; they can
go either way. So a lot of forgeries
enter the art bloodstream and it sometimes takes generations to cleanse them
from the system.
Of course, we’re talking here about a different art market
than most of us traditional realist painters are familiar with. We're happy just to show our
paintings at libraries, community centers and Lutheran
Church basements, as well as the pay-to-play
art clubs we join so we can get our work out of storage once in awhile. I’m guessing we would rather paint our own
paintings, sign our own names and take the consequences of our principled stance,
even if it means living in squalor for the rest of our allotted time on this
great, green earth of ours.
Besides, if you get caught selling a fake work of art, you
could go to prison, although it seems the chances of that happening are pretty
slim. The notorious art forger Elmyr de
Hory, who fooled a lot of people with his fake Picassos et al., did spend a
couple of months in jail on the island
of Ibiza for the crimes of
homosexuality and consorting with criminals.
But he never served any jail time for forgery because he denied ever
signing any of his forgeries with the name of the artist he was imitating. It’s not a crime to paint in the style of another
artist, of course. If it were, we’d all
be in jail. But it is a crime to sign your
painting with another artist’s name and sell it. Two of de Hory’s associates
made big money off his paintings, giving him a measly $400 monthly allowance,
and they may have been the ones who actually signed the paintings with the
names of the famous artists, according to de Hory’s Wikipedia entry.
I got to thinking about this topic the other day after I
had thumbed through an old Sotheby’s American Art auction catalog I picked up
recently at the flea market that sets up on Sundays in my fashionable
neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper
West Side. Picking up low-priced auction catalogs for 19th Century
European Art, American Art and Impressionist Art is one of the few important
guilty pleasures in my life and I can’t seem to break the habit. That Sunday at the flea market, a guy from Russia
was selling 20 or so catalogs for $1 apiece that he had picked up at the estate
sale of a New Jersey
art collector. Now that’s a great price for
these old catalogs. I won’t pay more
than $5 for them, but some junk dealers think they are worth $10 apiece, and
that’s simply outrageous. I bought eight
of the catalogs and was tempted to buy more, but they weigh a ton and I didn’t
feel like lugging any more of them home with me. Most were catalogs for auctions of American
Paintings at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
They were one-owner catalogs in very good condition with limited mileage
on them.
As I was evaluating my bounty at home, I was taken aback by
Lot No. 72 in the catalog for Sotheby’s New York
auction of American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture on March 23, 2005.
The painting illustrated was titled A
Walk on the Beach by Edward Cucuel (1875-1954), who was born in San
Francisco, but spent his most productive years in Germany. There
was no date or provenance given for the painting, which was described as “oil
on canvas laid down on panel,” 18 by 22 in., with an estimated price range of
$30,000 to $50,000. The lot description stated
it was signed “Cucuel” at the lower right, when in fact the signature appears
lower left on the painting.
The painting didn’t look at all like a typical Cucuel
painting, although he did paint many pictures of attractive young women
outdoors and indoors on bright sunny days. But the painting did look a lot like a painting
by Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927) titled Blonde
and Brunette, circa 1910, 16 ¼ x 20 3/8 in., which is in a private
collection. I’ve written separate blog
posts about each of these artists and I admire them greatly, although their
styles are radically different.
Potthast’s figures are solid, like the work of Benson, Tarbell and a lot
of other American Impressionists, while Cucuel’s Impressionist work has the bravura fluidity
of painters like Sargent, Boldini, Sorolla and Helleu.
How this obviously fake Cucuel painting came to be is anybody's guess, other than to those in the know. Cucuel, like the older Potthast, was a very busy and
successful painter. But here's a highly unlikely and rather goofy scenario I wasted some precious time coming up with: Cucuel might have seen Potthast’s painting
in an American gallery on one of his frequent trips back to New York, decided
to dash off a copy of this theme he might like to explore later himself, and the copy ended up
in his estate sale, where it was purchased by someone who signed Cucuel's name to it. The chances of that having happened are close to zero, I suppose. For what it’s worth,
the alleged Cucuel signature is in a light-colored paint, while all the Cucuel
paintings I have checked on the Internet are signed in a dark paint. I don't want to speculate any further on how this alleged Cucuel painting came to be in the Sotheby’s
catalog, and with pretty high expectations for a sale, as well, considering the
auction estimate.
Since I couldn’t find any information online regarding its
disposition, I called Sotheby’s and was told only that the painting had been
“withdrawn” before the auction. While I don’t know what took place at Sotheby’s with regard
to this painting, a Wikipedia entry on art forgeries states that if a dealer
finds the work is a forgery, he may quietly withdraw the piece and return it to
its previous owner -- "giving the forger an opportunity to sell it elsewhere."
Perhaps this “Cucuel” painting is on display somewhere in
the world right now. And why not? While I think it’s cropped a little too
tightly at the top and bottom, it’s a pretty good interpretation of the
Potthast original and might make a good story for the owner at a cocktail
party, if it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to acquire.
